Waterstones are the latest online retailer to get in on the Mr Mumbles pre-ordering act, with the book now available on their site. Both Waterstones and Amazon have already knocked 20% off the RRP, and are offering the book at £4.79.
You can see it on the Waterstones site – along with a countdown in days until the books is published – by clicking here.
I was hoping to do a big impressive reveal of the front cover to Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles, but it seems Amazon have beat me to it by putting the cover up on the product page for the book.
Still, they’ve probably saved me a fortune on fanfares and bunting.
Without any further ado or fuss, then, here’s what you can expect to see in bookshops from January 7th 2010.
The dude on the front, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, is Mr Mumbles himself. Each installment in the series will have a different villain peeking out through the tear, with the baddies themselves drawn by the fantastic Jonny Duddle.
I couldn’t be happier with the cover – Mr Mumbles looks exactly like I pictured him – and I can’t wait until I have the finished book in my hands.
I’d love to hear what you think, so leave a comment and let me know.
My son has been resting up after a recent operation, meaning he hasn’t been able to get outside to enjoy the nice weather we’ve been having in these here parts. As such, we’ve been playing the Playstation a lot, and building stuff with the Bendaroos I gave in and bought him last week.
So, a quick tally of my artistic endeavour this week gives us:
Words written: Zero
Bendaroo creations made: 247
The Bendaroos have it. If only I could find a way to make them pay the bills, I could give up this writing lark for good.
Just found out today that the first book in the Invisible Fiends series – Mr Mumbles – is available to pre-order at Amazon and WH Smith.
Publication has been brought forward to 7th January 2010 (one day after my 32nd birthday), so there’s a ridiculously long time before anyone who pre-orders will receive their copy. Still, the very fact it’s now available to buy online at all feels very, very weird indeed.
You can see the Amazon listing here and the WH Smith listing here. As ever, though, I would encourage you to buy the book from an independent bookshop if at all possible.
The following comment was posted anonymously yesterday on my post about me selling books on eBay and Amazon. I think it brings up a valid point, and is worth discussing here:
you do see the irony in running a campaign to support your local bookshop while flogging a whole pile of books on web-based auction sites yeee-eees?
I think this may be my fault for describing what I’m doing as a “business”. In fact, what I’m doing is getting rid of a load of old books and other stuff that is cluttering my house, in an attempt to make some room for all those things a baby apparently needs – cot, pram and the like.
So, essentially I have about 200 books or so I’m planning to get rid of, along with loads of other bits and bobs – from video games to comics – and I’m listing these anywhere I think I may be able to sell them. Do I think this hurts independent bookshops?
I hope not – at least, no more than people selling books at car boot sales does, anyway. You can buy second hand books in a vast number of places – car boot/jumble sales, charity shops, classified ads, etc – and this has always been the case.
So, let’s say I took all these books to a car boot sale, where the going price would be about 50p per book. Considering most of the books have never been read and are ‘as new’ this would be MASSIVELY undercutting pretty much every bookshop in the land.
Listing the books on eBay or Amazon, I’m putting them up at much closer to their actual value. Once postage is added, it could well be cheaper for a buyer to get their book at a local bookshop, meaning I’m no longer undercutting them. Also, if you look at the books I’m selling, most of them are either out of print, or very hard to find. Is your local bookshop likely to have out of print titles from the 1960s or 1970s? Possibly, but possibly not.
Like I said at the start of this post, the commenter raises a valid point. I do see the irony in me trying to encourage people to use their local bookshop while selling books myself online. I still say local bookshops offer much, much more than an online retailer can, and if it’s a choice between buying one of my books on the web, or getting the same title from a local shop, buy local without any hesitation.
But it’s the buying of books which is the important thing, regardless of where you get them. If, like me, you live over a hundred miles from your nearest independently run bookshop, I encourage you to buy your books from wherever you can get them – whether that be a chain store, a charity shop, a car boot sale or on the internet.
I hope that answers the anonymous poster’s comment. I’d love to hear what other readers of this blog think, though. Maybe you agree that I shouldn’t be selling books online? Drop me a comment and let me know.
